Food stalls dotting Valletta’s streets during carnival thrived as whole families hungrily queued for kebabs, sweets or burgers and chips. The fast food outlets too burgeoned while healthy food options were nowhere in sight. This clearly explains why obesity is a ballooning problem threatening to gobble up €35 million from the country’s coffers by 2020 unless people change their lifestyles.

The prevailing situation can hardly be surprising seeing that nearly 10 years ago the World Health Organisation had already described obesity as “the epidemic of the 21st century”.

In its attempt to slim down the weight problem, the Health Ministry has just rolled out the Food and Nutrition Policy Action Plan for 2014 – 2020, which aims to tackle the weight problem. Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia described it as an “important milestone” in the drive to promote healthy eating.

However, when you wade through the fat, the beef is lacking. Not only is this plan still in its infancy but a communication strategy has yet to be developed for the action plan.

The plan will also develop a comprehensive surveillance and monitoring system of food consumption and incorporate surveys and nutrition reports.

While the initiative is commendable, it fails to inspire any hope that something immediate and tangible will be done to address the urgent situation.

If one were to judge by any of the feeble efforts that were made in the past to address the problem, by the time any of the strategies, action plans, surveys and reports being mentioned now actually see the light of day it will probably be 2020, and, then, the nation is most likely to be even chubbier.

The proposed policy action plan is the fourth such attempt in seven years targeting obesity. In 2007, then health minister Louis Deguara had set up a committee to reduce obesity levels by 15 per cent in five years. Three years later, the government committed €150,000 to a campaign to fight obesity and, in 2012, it rolled out the national obesity strategy.

None of these efforts have succeeded in trimming the island’s obesity figures. One study after another exposes the nation’s expanding waistlines with a worrying increase in overweight children – up to 43 per cent from 32 per cent in 2010. Obesity greatly increases the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke... the list goes on.

Back in 2005, then health promotion director Maria Ellul had said that the country had been failing to see the writing on the wall since the early 1990s. Nine years on, the writing is screaming out in bold letters urging the government to look beyond reports.

Just last month, a study published in a World Health Organisation bulletin suggested governments could slow or even reverse the obesity epidemic by introducing more regulation into the global market for fast foods such as burgers, chips and soft drinks.

Policies suggested include economic incentives for growers to sell healthy, fresh foods, disincentives for industries to sell ultra-processed foods and soft drinks and tighter regulation of fast food advertising, especially to children.

Canada is also pushing legislation to force fast food chains to post calorie counts for each menu item, flagging high sodium and sugars, thus enabling consumers to make healthier choices.

With repeated surveys showing that the Maltese people lead in Europe’s lumpy league, it is high time that this island takes immediate concrete action or stumble under the lard.